Category Archives: Uncategorized

In light of the recent Zuckerberg testimony in front of the U.S. Congress, the May 2018 deadline for organizations to implement General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) data privacy regulations[7], and the imminent release of the SecureKey verify.me digital identity system, an important question is:

Are Canadian banks guilty of trafficking in, monetizing, and profiting from the digital identities of millions of Canadians, with the support of IBM and SecureKey as their key technology partners?

On October 18, 2016, SecureKey Technologies Inc., a Toronto-based provider of identity and authentication solutions, announced that it has raised:

“$27 million CAD in growth capital to fund the commercial rollout of a privacy-enhancing digital identity network. Teaming up with SecureKey on this initiative and participating in the funding round are leading financial institutions: BMO Bank of Montreal, Bank of Nova Scotia, CIBC, Desjardins, Royal Bank of Canada and TD.”[1]

On March 20, 2017, IBM and SecureKey announced that they were:

“working together to enable a new digital identity and attribute sharing network based on IBM [Hyperledger Fabric] Blockchain.”[2]

Subsequently in early 2018, SecureKey released two additional documents[4][5] that describe both the business model and technology platform for the verify.me digital identity system. Verify.me is SecureKey’s IBM Hyperledger distributed ledger (blockchain) based digital identity system supported by Canada’s largest 5 banks (as well as other institutions):

Additional details on the verify.me digital identity system were also presented at the Australian Payments Network conference in August, 2017[3].

The Business Model

The most concerning part of this partnership between SecureKey, IBM, and the Canadian banks is the partnership’s intent to monetize and profit from the trafficking of digital identities of individual Canadians based on the following and similar excerpts from [4][5]:

Figure 1. SecureKey verify.me Business Model

The SecureKey documents’ rationale for SecureKey and the Canadian banks to pursue this business model was driven by a perceived threat by the banks from many fronts including encroachment by non-banking businesses into the domain of the Canadian banks and pending new regulations (e.g. PSD2).

IBM is providing SecureKey with the Hyperledger products, technologies, services, and know-how to create what is, in effect, a digital identity dark web [8] for the Canadian banking industry to engage in trade of their customers’ digital identity information with SecureKey and SecureKey’s digital identity requester clients.

The primary technology platform is the open source Hyperledger Fabric v1.0 project – an open-source distributed ledger project used almost exclusively for private and consortium applications[6].

The following diagram represents a consolidation of the information presented in the SecureKey references mentioned at the end of this article.

SecureKey’s February 2018 documents highlight initial set of digital identity information (digital assets) that will be provided by the Digital Identity Information Providers as illustrated in the following diagram[4][5].

Figure 4. Information and Privacy Risk

Without adequate governance and government regulation, once in place, the verify.me digital identity system can be used to satisfy any digital identity claim from any requester including health information, additional financial information, and other personal data. A lot is at stake for individual Canadians.

Conclusions

Why are the Canadian banks and SecureKey being allowed to monetize and profit from individual Canadians’ digital identity information? A person’s digital identity is like their digital heart and digital soul. Individual Canadians need to own and control both of these – all of their digital identity data. The role of industry and government should be to act as validators of each person’s digital identity …and no more. Who is watching out for the future of Canadians?

Appendix A – Amazon Leadership Principles (and Subprinciples) contains an ArchiMate enterprise architecture model that depicts the (and then decomposes) the 14 Amazon Leadership Principles into multiple levels of subprinciples. Scroll down to the bottom of this article to check it out.
NOTE: The underlining in Appendix A attempts to highlight the individual Subprinciples and Relationships found in the text description of each of the 14 Principles.

The first real section Amazon Leadership Principles, Core Entities, and Relationships presents a new innovative way to learn, remember, understand, and apply the Amazon Leadership Principles as highly visual web (or mesh or graph) of principles, concrete entities, abstract entities, and relationships.

The last section (just before Appendix A), entitled Personal Leadership Principle Maps, depicts how the experiences and accomplishments of one person’s career (mine) can be (formally) mapped the Amazon Leadership Principles.

Let’s start the journey. If you’re not familiar with the Principles, start by reading:

Appendix B – Amazon Leadership Principles; then

Appendix A – Amazon Leadership Principles (and Subprinciples)

All of the figures in this article represent different graphitized views of the Amazon Leadership Principles (click here) …all built from a single underlying graph model (which, in total, is referred to as the #Graphitization of the Amazon Leadership Principles).

The existence, enablement, creation and/or execution of each group of relationships gives rise to (or realizes) one or more of the 14 Principles (and/or their Subprinciples). When these realization relationships are added to the Core Entities depicted in Figure 1, Figure 2., the “Complete Model”, is the result. (Click to enlarge.)

To simplify the understanding of the model, 14 new views were created – one for each of the 14 Principles – each overlayed on the original Core Model (Figure 1). Figure 3 is an example drawn from one of these 14 views: Principle 1. Customer Obsession.

So far, we’ve addressed the “what” of the Amazon Leadership Principles depicted as a #Graphitization model projected as a number of different views.

In the next section, the Amazon Leadership Principles are used as a framework for cataloging one’s lifetime experiences and accomplishments. Personal Leadership Principle Maps is an Amazon Leadership Principles application – it’s the Amazon Leadership Principles put into action.

Personal Leadership Principle Maps

Have you been living an Amazon Leadership Principled career/faith/life?

Figure 5. is a copy of my Personal Leadership Principle Map (PLPM).

ArchiMate Assessment entities are used to model specific experiences and accomplishments.

ArchiMate Outcome entities are used to model specific evidence, learnings, or proof that one has been able to apply the specific principle in their career, faith and/or life.

In my case, for Principle 7. Insist on the Highest Standards, I have specific experiences related to the recent Toronto Salesforce 2017 Tour, working at Parallelspace Corporation, the IBM Canada Toronto Software Lab, and at Microsoft.

Specific evidence includes:

Parallelspace trust framework (Relationships-Reputation-Trust)

Working as an ISO-9000 Quality Analyst and a certified Quality Assurance Auditor

A concept I call focusing on the success of an Individual Individual

Various and diverse experiences working for Microsoft as a full-time employee (blue badge) and as a Microsoft partner

Next Steps for Iteration 2

Possible next steps include:

Federation of Personal Leadership Principle Maps – at the Employee Team, business unit, or Organization level to discover the aggregates collective experiences and accomplishments for the purpose of rebalancing hiring objectives (Principle Gap Analysis), accumulating customer as well as competitive intelligence, etc. to support Customer Obsession, Ownership, Invent and Simplify, etc. goals and objectives. Identifying the best sources of experiences and accomplishments for specific Principles based on a Team’s or Organization’s previous roles, education, or training.

Use of both the Core Model and the Complete Model as well as the Federate Personal Leadership Principle Maps to create a graph database repository to real-time query analysis and visualization (e.g. using the Neo4j graph database).

Appendix B – Amazon Leadership Principles

The underlining attempts to highlight the individual Subprinciples and Relationships found in the text description of each of the 14 Principles.

Leadership Principles

Our Leadership Principles aren’t just a pretty inspirational wall hanging. These Principles work hard, just like we do. Amazonians use them, every day, whether they’re discussing ideas for new projects, deciding on the best solution for a customer’s problem, or interviewing candidates. It’s just one of the things that make Amazon peculiar.

Customer Obsession (1)

Leaders start with the customer and work backward. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.

Ownership (2)

Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job”.

Invent and Simplify (3)

Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here”. As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.

Are Right, A Lot (4)

Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.

Learn and Be Curious (5)

Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.

Hire and Develop the Best (6)

Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.

Insist on the Highest Standards (7)

Leaders have relentlessly high standards – many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and driving their teams to deliver high-qualityproducts, services, and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.

Think Big (8)

Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.

Bias for Action (9)

Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.

Frugality (10)

Accomplish more with less. Constraints breedresourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size or fixed expense.

Earn Trust (11)

Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.

Dive Deep (12)

Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.

Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit (13)

Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.

Deliver Results (14)

Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.

Why would you prefer to work for Amazon (or Facebook) over Microsoft (or Salesforce)?

Scenario 1: These are organizations with an unrelenting, unbelievable, and successful focus on happy customers. …a true, genuine, deliberate focus on building and maintaining positive relationships with their customer and partners? Would you choose to work for a Scenario 1 organization? …maybe.

Scenario 2: These are the other companies that really need your help and are willing to hire you to help make the important changes necessary to develop the same sort of unrelenting focus on building and maintaining positive customer and partner relationships Would you choose to work for a Scenario 1 organization? …maybe.

I have the option (luxury) to consider all 4 types of opportunities and in each case, work with some brilliant people. Which organization(s) would you pick?

With a Scenario 2 company, you’re starting work working for an organization in a net deficit position with respect to customer happiness, respect, and trust. Job one is to move the organization from a net negative position to a net neutral or, hopefully, positive position in the marketplace; then build of there. If you know or deeply understand the Scenario 2 company, you’re likely being asked “to return and to help” as a trusted soldier. You likely know and understand the root causes that have landed the organization at the bottom of the ladder of customer satisfaction.

With a Scenario 1 company, you’re starting work working for an organization in a net positive position with respect to customer happiness, respect, and trust. There is no Job one because the organization already has a great positive report with its customer and partners – not just its largest revenue-generating customers but all customers; from

Individual individuals

up through

Single-person corporations,

Two-person partnerships,

Small businesses/enterprises,

Medium size businesses/enterprises,

Large businesses/enterprises, and

Extra large businesses/enterprises.

Scenario 1 organizations are already at or near the top of the customer satisfaction mountain and are only striving to be even better. They and yourself are notstarting work each day working in a negative hole. Thriving is thriving …thriving to be your best from a positive starting position of customer and partner happiness, respect, and trust.

Scenario 2 organizations start work each day in a negative hole. Yes, there may be places where, on some days, you can stand on something to see over the top of the hole and things don’t look so dreary …but it’s not guaranteed …and it’s neither fun nor enjoyable to work there every day. Thriving is equivalent to surviving. #NotFun

For the past couple weeks now, I’ve been on the left coast visit with friends and colleagues and having an extraordinary time. Often, the conversation returns to what is the best way to convince someone or some group to do this or that. Here’s some ideas and templates to consider based on my past experiences:

The remaining concepts in Figure 1 and Figure 2 become Adjectives (i.e. abstract or virtual concepts) that modify or specialize the behavior of the target concept. The purpose of an Adjective (and more often a collection of Adjectives) is to support specialization of a Noun.

For example, in Figure 2 below, the box entitled “Capability” is a Concept which inherits the following Adjectives (specializations):

Element_ModelMate30_Parallelspace

BehaviorElement_ModelMate30_Parallelspace

Figure 2. Hierarchy of Behavior and Structure Elements (The Open Group)

For a more elaborate example (see Figure 3 below), Business Role, Business Actor, and Business Collaboration are Nouns which inherit the following Adjectives:

Element_ModelMate30_Parallelspace

BusinessElement_ModelMate30_Parallelspace

InternalActiveStructureElement_ModelMate30_Parallelspace

Figure 3. Business Internal Active Structure Elements (The Open Group)

As a follow-on to a recent “How to I model X using ArchiMate” question in the LinkedIn ArchiMate group (Modelling Blockchain technology), there are some standard questions that need to be answered before one can provide a good answer to a “How to I model X using ArchiMate” question:

For the ArchiMate 3.0 experts: What is the preferred way to model a Server Farm given some of the new elements in ArchiMate 3.0?

In ArchiMate 2.1, a collection of nested Nodes was the most obvious solution. What is the preferred approach using ArchiMate 3.0 to model Server Farms given a) Grouping is now a (an almost) first-class concept, and b) the new Technology Collaboration element. What is the best choice?

Here’s 2 examples: Server Farm A using Grouping and Server Farm B using a Technology Collaboration element. I’ve used slightly different scenarios for each example but my assumption (hope) is that is shouldn’t make any difference.

Server Farm A using Grouping

Server Farm B using a Technology Collaboration element

What is the preferred way to model a Server Farm given the new elements in ArchiMate 3.0? a) Grouping, or b) the new Technology Collaboration element. …or something else? What are the pros and cons of your choice?